But Plymouth Argyle fans are split over whether manager Derek Adams should have publicly criticised midifelder Graham Carey after his side's 5-1 thrashing away at Luton.

Carey picked up his fifth yellow card of the season at Kenilworth Road after after arguing that one of the Luton players should have been yellow-carded when he was fouled on the edge of the penalty area.

As a result he'll be banned for the visit of Fleetwood Town this weekend.

In his post-match interviews Adams described Carey's reaction as "stupid" and "abolsutely mental", warning the Northern Irishman that his first team place may be at risk.

“If somebody else comes in and does well then he’s going to miss out” Adams said.

So should managers critcise players in public? Is it counter-productive, or does it depend on the player?

We ran a poll on our Facebook page @plymouthlivesport asking for your thoughts. The question was straightforward enough: "Do you think managers should call out individual players on their performances, or should that sort of criticism stay in the dressing room?"

It seems you were lmsot perfectly split down the middle, with just over 50% of voters saying they felt it was fine for Adams to criticise Carey.

Reader Brian Woodward said: "Players need to man up, players who perform or act badly get a kick up the trousers, learn and then move on. Children do it so why can't players."

Martin Shaw said he thought it depended on why the player was being criticised.

"I personally believe if players are criticised for the right reasons it’s not a problem," he said.

"DA has criticised GC to take the heat off himself. He’s signed some bang average players this season and his tactics are very poor. Saturday was one of the worst performances I’ve seen from this bunch of players. This in my personal opinion is down to DA. DA needs to take responsibility and stop blaming others"

Graham Carey | Photo: Dave Rowntree/PPAUK

Lots of readers commented on the original story too, where opinions were similarly divided.

"He's still performing better than the majority of oither players," said Green10. "Once again Derek deflecting any responsibility from his own deficiencies."

" Football managers use all sorts of motivational methods to get the best out of players.

"The best managers, I believe, understand and appreciate that some players need an arm around the shoulder at times but others do need 'a rocket' to get the best out of them.

"Personally, I think criticising individual players runs the risk of making them out to be scapegoats for heavy defeats and such like. But I do not see the problem with general criticism of a team after such a dismal display as the one that Argyle produced when they lost 5-1 to Luton Town on Saturday.

"The players deserved criticism from Adams. Their performance simply was not good enough. Had Adams not made the strong comments that he did, and come out with the line 'it was just a bad day at the office' some supporters would almost certainly have criticised for defending his players too much. As is usually the case in football, you are sometimes damned if you do and damned if you don't."